Remembering Doug Schutte and His Bard’s Town Passion

A photo I took of Doug Schutte the day 10 years ago when we sat down at the Bard’s Town. Photo by Kevin Gibson

I was saddened and a little shocked when I learned Thursday night of Doug Schutte’s passing. The actor/director/playwright/venue owner was the driving force behind The Bard’s Town, the long-time Bardstown Road playhouse and restaurant — or as Doug phrased it, “pub theater.”

The theater and eatery finally closed in January after about a dozen-year run, but Schutte already had scoped out a new venue for his long-time pet project and the wheels were already in motion to reopen the concept. We can only hope someone will pick up that torch.

In the meantime, though, we mourn a friend of the Louisville community. While Schutte was mostly focused on theater, at least in my experience, he also supported other forms of art and expression, from comedy to music. My band performed at the Bard’s Town multiple times over the past decade or so, and it was a venue we held dear. Doug also loved football. He loved cooking. He loved his family.

And, to boil it all down, Dough Schutte was just a good man.

I sat down with him a decade ago to talk to him about how the Bard’s Town came to be, what propelled him forward, what fueled his passion, furiously taking notes for a cover story for LEO Weekly. Doug was, not surprisingly, forthcoming and energetic in our conversation. He told me he had jogged past the building that would become the Bard’s Town (it had previously been home to several concepts, including Judge Roy Bean’s) and it reminded him of the pub theaters he had visited in London.

And so it began. Within a couple of years, the Bard’s Town was winning awards for its productions. And Schutte was living his dream. There were ups and downs; on more than one occasion he expressed to me that he just wasn’t sure how it could continue. But continue it did. He had spent his life savings making it happen, so there was no stopping. And his passion was contagious to those around him.

“The first three years, there are some slim times,” he told me during that interview. “It feels very lonely when you realize there’s not anybody else staying up at night getting ulcers, thinking about paying bills. But people really invested in this, they care about it. When people care, it makes a difference.”

People did care. They still do.

“I’m sitting, talking to myself, as I’m apt to do,” he recalled that day, thinking about when he made the decision to make his pub theater vision become a reality. “I’m pretty sure I was talking out loud. I said, ‘Look, here’s this money; it’s a lot of money. If you do this and you lose this money, is that going to haunt you for the rest of your life?’”

He thought for a moment and continued: “I thought about it, and I thought, ‘Yes, if this fails, I’m going to be upset.’ I take everything personally. But I would not have said, ‘Man, [losing] that money – that’s what kills me.’ Once I knew that, I thought, ‘I might as well go for it and see what happens.’”

And boy, did he make it happen. Rest in peace, Doug. You will be missed more than you know.

You can read the full story here: https://www.leoweekly.com/2013/06/to-thine-own-self-be-true/